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EDITOR

The Countywide & Sun:

This week a trip to the local food store was different and not in a good way! Oh, food was on the shelves, quality was excellent, staff efficient and helpful, but what was not good — no one, not customers or employees — wore masks. After weeks of masks, sheltering at home and social distancing, it was business as usual.

Clearly, COVID-19 cases and deaths may be waning, but the numbers are still high. The Corona Task Force has as much as said that states opening up for business may cause a virus rebound. It is not time to let our guard down.

A vast majority of Oklahomans voluntarily wore facemasks, kept six foot social distancing and stayed home, except for essential grocery, pharmacy or carryout runs. Oklahomans “flattened the curve” and while doing so, worshipped at home, had school on line, made recipes they now had time to make, and best of all spent time reconnecting with family and neighbors.

Oklahomans, like the country, reached out to one another through food pantries, musical serenades, Teddy bears, rainbows and written messages, and hospital parking lot jamborees in loving support of medical workers for their sacrifices.

A President and a Governor want the economy open again. Surely, business must happen, but can we afford business as usual, if it means a rebound or another COVID-19 outbreak? This virus is still lurking here; it has not gone away, nor will it, until a vaccine or antiviral is developed.

Additional testing, contact tracing, social distancing and masks are the only defenses to this virus. Despite hopeful wishes and happy talk from the White House, this killer is here and for the foreseeable future.

Keep wearing masks and staying six feet apart — someone’s grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, good friend, or child — will thank you.

Marilyn Bradford

Shawnee